Hal was making the point that so many stories are really built upon other stories
Oh, absolutely. I was vaguely alluding to that when I mentioned stories echoing other stories, but it was a long post already and I didn't want to add another 500 words by going into it in more detail. I like the way that the characters move through stories-in-progress. But I don't think that excludes what I was talking about in the main post, it's just that all of the many stories he's dragging into the vellum can be traced back, through layers, to increasingly primitive ur-stories. That's exactly what happens with Seamus in the second half of the novel, after all.
You may well be right that the overall arc is one of escape, in which case Ink could end with the mother of all conceptual breakthroughs. If it does I'll be right there with him. ;-)
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Oh, absolutely. I was vaguely alluding to that when I mentioned stories echoing other stories, but it was a long post already and I didn't want to add another 500 words by going into it in more detail. I like the way that the characters move through stories-in-progress. But I don't think that excludes what I was talking about in the main post, it's just that all of the many stories he's dragging into the vellum can be traced back, through layers, to increasingly primitive ur-stories. That's exactly what happens with Seamus in the second half of the novel, after all.
You may well be right that the overall arc is one of escape, in which case Ink could end with the mother of all conceptual breakthroughs. If it does I'll be right there with him. ;-)